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Linux Desktop Week in Review

by Web Editor

Earlier this week,
Dell announced
it was releasing a new desktop computer "to meet growing customer demand for open-source ready systems". The Dell Dimension E510n base installation offers a Pentium 4 630 processor, 512MB of DDR2 memory, a 128MB ATI RADEON video card and an 80GB SATA hard drive. The E510n doesn't ship with Linux installed, but it does have a blank hard drive, so purchasers can install Linux or other operating systems at their will. The new Dimension desktop is available now for purchase from the Dell on-line store.

New ThinkPad laptop computers in Singapore will be shipping with StarOffice installed, thanks to
an agreement between Sun and Lenovo. The ThinkPad R51e will have the newly released StarOffice 8 on board. StarOffice 8 provides word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software similar to Microsoft's Office suite, as well as migration tools that enable users to switch from MS Office to StarOffice. Lenovo took over production of the ThinkPad from IBM in 2004.

The official release of SUSE Linux 10 recently became available, and even without a big PR blitz about the release,
early reports indicate the official download site and its mirrors were swamped. According to the Novell site, SUSE Linux 10 includes new versions of both KDE and GNOME; a pre-release version of OpenOffice.org 2.0; and new releases of GCC, Mono, KDevelop, Eclipse, the Opera browser and more. New features for SUSE Linux 10 include Krita, the new image-processing tool in KOffice; Banshee Music Management with MP3 support; AmaroK with MP3 support; Novell iFolder 3; Twinkle and KPhone VoIP; and Mozilla's new Sunbird Calendar application. SUSE Linux 10 also comes in a version that includes only open-source software and applications.

Comment viewing options

HP at least in france actually sell their Laptops with Mandrake. Thats right, Laptops, which is superb. They did had a trial program in the US on shipping SuSE with a latpop but they did so small promotion that it was misserable.

Although I applaud Dell for breaking their ties with MS and finally offering the consumer what so many people have been requesting for a long time, I would like to bring the following article posted on The Register to people's attention.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/06/dell_open_pc/

Unfortunately, things aren't quite as simple as they could be for those consumers with cash to spend and who don't wish to spend it on Windows :-(

Hopefully the negative publicity that Dell are getting from the exposure at The Register will help them resolve these issues quickly.

Gareth, thanks for the link to the great article. IMHO Dell computers, while working well, have always been too expensive except on certain closeouts or around some holidays. As for the Linux box, what a ripoff! Dell clearly is making an exception for MS. That computer should be at least $100 USD below any machine they sell with Win XP Home installed.